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From the Editor
01.06.1999
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From the Editor
01.12.1999
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From the Editors
01.09.1994
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Guest Editorial
01.03.2019
I have been known to mock some ’academic’ research about microfinance by suggesting that one might as well study the correlation between the size of loan officers’ shoes and the veracity of their expense claims. This nonsense arises from my scepticism about much of the research on microfinance and indeed any topic which emerges from universities around the world, and on which the professional advancement of their faculty appears to depend. Hence I was very pleased when Jason Donovan and his colleagues asked me to write an editorial for this issue. Three of the four papers which have been chosen for the issue are about correlations between two or more measurable features of a sample of microfinance institutions; I shall have to abandon my thoughtless mockery and examine whether such papers really do make a useful contribution to the improvement of microfinance. -
Guest Editorial
01.09.2018
My name remains on the inside front cover of this Journal, in the list of the Editorial Committee, along with Biff Steel and Dietmar Stoian. It is very properly placed well below the name of the Editor Jason Donovan, who does most of the work, but I rather feel it’s presence is more because of courtesy, or perhaps in memory like an inscription on a stone, than in recognition of anything I actually do. But nevertheless Jason has asked me to draft an editorial for this issue, I hope not in desperation, or in error, so I shall do my best to oblige. -
Guest editorial: Reaching the poorest with finance and enterprise support
01.03.2018
This special issue focuses on the ways in which microfinance and enterprise development initiatives do and do not help very poor people – that is, their capacity to ‘reach the poorest’. -
Akhuwat of Lahore: Breaking the rules
01.03.2012
This paper describes the operations of Akhuwat, a microfinance institution which offers shariah-compliant micro-financial services to clients in Lahore and elsewhere in Pakistan. The institution has been in business for ten years. It charges no interest or any other fees for its loans, and has reached about one hundred thousand borrowers. It relies heavily on volunteer staff, and all its funding is from local and mainly unofficial voluntary donations, including substantial amounts from its clients, which cover over half its operating costs. Akhuwat generally lends to households, rather than to individual women, or men, and without any form of group intermediation. It is an important example of an efficient but non-commercial approach to microfinance, from which many other microfinance institutions may be able to learn.